Remembrance Day echoes strengthened resolve against military occupation

[TamilNet, Thursday, 18 May 2017, 19:39 GMT]There will come a day when the Tamil-speaking people who are now waging continuous protests for securing their lands from the occupying military and the people who have been seeking answers on the whereabouts of their kith and kin in the hands of the military to start waging a struggle demanding the SL Army, Navy and Air Force to go home, said Justice C.V. Wigneswaran, the chief minister of Northern Provincial Council, in his memorial address on the occasion of 8th year remembrance held at Mu’l’livaaykkaal on Thursday. Hundreds of people, including the ones who had lost their loved ones in the genocidal onslaught, were paying tribute at the emotional event, side by side along with their politicians, who were standing among the crowd as everyone else.

The Chief Minister said Mu’l’livaaykkaal memorial day was a day capable of bringing all sections of Tamil speaking people in the North-East towards a unified future discourse.

There are at least 150,000 military personnel deployed in North alone, the Chief Minister noted in his address.

“The truth is that there is no need for Army, Navy and Air Force here,” he said in his address. The presence of a military with hostile intentions is only detrimental to the peace, security and wellbeing of the people.

John Tory, the mayor of Toronto, the largest city outside the island with Eezham Tamil population, visited Mu’l’livaaykaal during his recent trip to the north and asked why there was so many posts along the road, Justice Wigneswaran said.

“I have lit this flame, raising above the political party limits and boundaries. This Remembrance Day should be marked so also in the future,” C.V. Wigneswaran said. He lit the common flame of sacrifice with four civilians from the families of people subjected to enforced disappearances.

Opposition Leader R. Sampanthan and TNA parliamentarian M.A. Sumanthiran were also present at the event. At the end of the memorial address, Mr Sampanthan was confronted by the people of Vanni, who passed a sharp message to him to course correct his politics and called for an attitudinal change in the octogenarian politician.

A section of Buddhist monks belonging to the organization of all faiths were present along with Islamic, Catholic and Saiva religious leaders in Mu’l’livaaykkaal.

The Tamil Naitonal Peoples’ Front (TNPF) staged its memorial event at Kappaladi in Mu’l’livaaykkaal around 2:30 p.m. The TNPF has also marked another memorial event at Vaakarai in Batticaloa.

In the meantime, SL Police was announcing in loudspeakers that people should stay away from the area at St. Paul’s Church where memorial stones had been planted as there was an interim court order against the move.

However, the people were allowed to enter the church at 3:30 p.m. and conduct their prayers as a group of lawyers moved a case for legal clarification of the interim order issued on Wednesday. As long as the people stayed away from the memorial statue and the grounds where the memorial stones with engraved names, the memorial event could proceed, they were told.

The memorial event held at the church was very emotional as the people started to move the remaining stones that had not been planted, paying floral tribute under a temporary Cross placed at the centre.

A section of former LTTE members calling themselves as ‘Crusaders for Democracy’ also conducted a memorial event at Mu’l’ivaaykkaal Market, a place close to the last Heroes Cemetery site during the genocidal war.

Jaffna University Students’ Union, Medical Faculty Students also marked an emotional Mu’l’livaaykkaal Remembrance. Their message was “The Tamil Genocide cannot be forgotten nor forgiven”. The newly appointed Vice Chancellor Professor Ratnam Vigneswaran also attended the memorial event. A similar event was held in the Eastern University.

District-level memorial events were observed in all the 8 districts of North-East.

The hostile attitude of the occupying Sinhala military erecting Buddha statues in the North-East in the recent days, especially after the Vesak, claiming the days until 18 May as ‘victory week’, has irked the Tamil-speaking people in the North-East, political observers in Jaffna told TamilNet citing latest events at Naavatkuzhi and at Nayinaa-theevu in Jaffna and in the East, particularly in areas where Tamil-speaking Muslims live in large numbers.